Chapter 64

  I darted around the Ice Stomper in a zigzag pattern, almost relaxed. Once to the left, then up, a curve to the right and back down, with a small slash of my claw at his leg, right at the thick joint plate of ice. He roared. Oh, how he roared. That blend of muffled rage and helpless pain… it sounded almost musical. Not a melody exactly – more like a dark croak, echoing through the cavern, bouncing back a hundredfold. Honestly, I could’ve listened to it forever.

  I kept going, slicing his shoulder with a claw, letting a quick flick of my wings pass through his field of vision, then another cut – this time at his fist. Nothing lethal – that was never the goal. Just small wounds. Superficial, almost careful. It was a dance. A slow letting of blood.

  He bled light blue. No idea why. Maybe it had something to do with his internal temperature regulation, or some crystalline structure in his flesh. Or maybe the universe just rolls weird colors sometimes. I never questioned it. I just saw it run from him – in fine, trembling rivulets, down his back, along his legs, dripping onto the cold stone floor, where it froze the moment it hit. It was almost beautiful. Like a blue vein snaking in slow motion across the rock.

  I could’ve ended it. A clean strike, a stab through the skull from above – maybe with a little spin in the air for style – and that would be that. But I wasn’t here to win. Not right away, at least. I wanted to see what I could do. What we could do. How strong my bond with Gravor had become, how deep his essence had sunk into me – and what it did to my body when I truly, truly unleashed it.

  I watched every wound I caused. Saw how many closed quickly – the Stomper was a tough beast, no doubt. Its natural regeneration was impressive. But not perfect. Some cuts stayed open. Others began to fester. Literally. Small, ulcer-like bulges formed where my claws had sunk too deep. First bluish, then dark, then black. And then: cracked, from the inside. Something was growing in them. Spreading. Like a disease chewing through his veins.

  “The result of an experiment, back when I had a lot of time… to think,” Gravor muttered in my head, almost casually, like he was talking about an old recipe. I felt his smirk – drifting through my mind like a cold breeze.

  I didn’t answer. What could I have said? His past was like a torn-up book with no title – and honestly, 99% of the pages were missing. But that’s just how he was. And the poison? Well… it worked perfectly. Just like everything else in that moment.

  I kept circling. Felt the weight of my wings in the air, the firm grip of the sword in my claws, the quiet hum of the cursed blade on my back. Everything about me felt… complete. Not in the sense of “I’m healed now” – I never was – but more like a well-fitted coat. Heavy, but tailor-made.

  The Ice Stomper lifted its head for a moment, as if trying to follow me with its eyes. But I was already gone.

  I conjured Gravor’s Veil around me, and instantly that cold, dense layer of dark essence wrapped itself around my body. Heavy like soaked cloth, and yet featherlight. It felt like I existed between two realities—part of neither, untouchable by both. I hovered almost soundlessly just beneath the arched ceiling of the cave, where frozen stalactites clustered like icy spearheads. My breath steamed in the air, but even that was invisible. The veil was perfect.

  Beneath me stood the Ice Stomper. Its massive limbs barely moved. The pain I’d inflicted hadn’t been forgotten, I could feel that. But it was distracted—not relaxed, not calmed, just… confused. Its eyes—if you could call those glassy, milky crystals eyes—swept over the cave walls, scanned the darkness. Twice, it passed right over my hiding spot.

  But it didn’t see me. It couldn’t see me. And yet… something in its behavior told me it sensed me.

  I had no time. The veil wasn’t a long-term solution. And its wounds were beginning to close—slowly but steadily—pulsing scars of ice and regenerating flesh that reshaped themselves stubbornly. So the fun had to continue.

  I dove from the shadows, the veil still clinging to me like a silent shroud of death, and only in the very last moment—the final heartbeat—I let it drop.

  The effect was glorious.

  The Stomper had no chance. No roar, no counterstrike, no defensive reaction. I was already there. And my sword drove into its back. Not between the plates—through them. The cursed blade, pulsing like a living parasite, cut effortlessly through the armored layer of ice and into the muscle beneath.

  I aimed for… I don’t know. A heart? Some central thing that’s supposed to explode when you hit it. What I hit was: flesh. Lots of it. Tough. Alive. Infectable.

  That at least worked. Gravor’s tainted poison, his little home remedy against all things that breathe, spread immediately. Within seconds, dark veins curled around the wound, and the scream the Ice Stomper let out now was… personal. Not just pain. Fury. It was almost like I’d ruined its lunch.

  “I thought there’d be more to it,” I muttered as I rose into the air again.

  “Well, maybe you just don’t know shit about biology,” Gravor sneered in my head, with that particularly annoying, smug tone.

  “So just pure aggression in flesh form?” I asked, half serious, half amused.

  “Nope. They only feel cold sorrow and endless hatred toward all prey. No other emotions,” he said flatly—or rather, deadpan. And sure, he was mocking me. Or was he? Was he?

  I just thought silently: You serious?

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  And without me saying a word aloud, he replied: “Let me show you something.”

  The next moment… everything turned gray.

  Not just dark—gray. As if someone had turned down the contrast of my perception. No light, no shadows. No color. Only layers of dust, fog, fragments of memory—like looking through an old, faded painting. And then… I saw him.

  The Ice Stomper.

  Not just his outer shell, but his structure. His inner movements. How his muscles worked. How blood flowed through him. How the poison spread. I saw layered tissues that had no names. A respiratory system made more of crystal maws than lungs. And there, deep in his chest cavity, beneath two arched bone plates—a pulsing node of ice, half organic, half mineral. Maybe not a heart… but close enough.

  “There,” whispered Gravor. “Second chance, my paladin.”

  And I gladly took the chance.

  It was that brief moment where everything seemed perfect—where I was already calculating the trajectory, gripping my sword tighter, dissolving the gray veil of vision, and almost whispering a silent thank you. I launched into flight—fast, low, precise. But just as I guided my body toward the target, something screamed through my mind like an alarm bell. No word. No clear thought. Just: Danger. Now.

  My body jerked upward instinctively—a reflex, not a conscious command. And in the exact instant I veered off course, a massive block of ice crashed through the space I had just been. I heard the shattering sound behind me, like glass breaking in a nightmare, and saw the shattered debris rain down. Cold. Hard. Deadly.

  “Fantastic,” I muttered. “Now it’s getting sporty.”

  The Ice Stomper had turned—calmly, not in a panic. Not blindly. Precise. With full intent. It plunged its fists deep into the frozen ground like digging arms and hoisted up another batch of massive ice chunks. With a roar that sounded like metal grinding against itself mixed with beast-like fury, it hurled them at me one after another. Like a goddamn living catapult tower.

  I had to tighten my flight path, weaving in zigzags through the frozen storm. And with every dodge, it became clearer: This wasn’t a mindless brute. This thing had tactics. Not genius, but an alarmingly accurate sense for pressure points.

  “Come on, Luken,” I whispered to myself. “Think. You’ve got wings, not a bullseye.”

  I climbed higher, circled, came closer. But every time I flew toward its chest—that spot where that ice nerve, that heart-thing pulsed—the next ice block came flying. As if it knew my goal. As if it… understood.

  But I wasn’t just a target. I was a hunter.

  “What you can do,” I murmured with a grin, letting my gaze sweep across the cavern wall, “I can do better.”

  I felt something stir on my shoulders—beneath the skin, beneath the bone. No pain. Just pressure. A tingling. And then they grew: thorns. Black, glistening spikes of Tainted Bone, sprouting from my back plates like a disease with clear intent. I twisted mid-air, threw my body upward with a jolt—and hurled them down with a cry.

  A hailstorm of demonic wrath rained down on the Ice Stomper. Each spike struck his ice armor with a faint crack, piercing slightly, snapping off, lodging deep. Not a single one was lethal. None were meant to be. But they hurt. And they weakened him.

  I could see it. His movements were less fluid. His legs dipped slightly. He rasped. That sickening sound again, like air being forced through shattered glass.

  But then came the moment I should’ve been ready for.

  His posture shifted. His head snapped upward—abruptly, like the twitch of a predator that finally understands its prey. The next movement wasn’t defense—it was assault. His muscles tightened like cords under frozen skin, his fists no longer digging but clawing into the ground as if preparing to launch himself forward.

  And I knew: This beast was really pissed now.

  “Oh great,” I muttered. “Now comes the fun part.”

  A single, massive burst of motion lifted its entire mass off the ground—like an avalanche with a will of its own. It pushed off with all four limbs at once, surged across the cave with brutal force, and crashed into the wall—right where I had been hovering in the air just seconds ago.

  The wall trembled. The ice cracked—not in chunks or debris, but into a dense web of fine, treacherous fractures. It sounded like shattering glass on the verge of disintegrating into dust.

  I had already backed away again, ready for the next exchange—but it didn’t come.

  Instead: a voice.

  Not dull. Not animalistic. Not distorted. It was a woman’s voice. Clear. Loud. And painfully direct—right in my head. Or in my ears. Hard to tell.

  “I will fulfill my duty! I will protect it!”

  The last word echoed through the cave like a gong, vibrating inside my skull. Not because of the volume—because of the meaning. I blinked. Confused. Protect?

  I hovered in place. Not tense. Not flinching. Just calm. My claws traced light circles through the air. I stared at her. And she stared back.

  The Ice Stomper had risen. Slowly. Heavily. From a crouch, like she had been waiting for a second strike. Now, though, she stood still. Blood still dripped from dozens of wounds, many of them darkened by Gravor’s gift—but she showed no sign of pain. No trembling. No rage.

  Just… something between tension and waiting.

  She didn’t speak further. And me? I was too confused to act right away. What exactly had she said? And why did she sound less like a monster—and more like a damn temple guardian?

  So I tried the classic approach. Diplomacy.

  “Whatever you’re guarding, I’m not interested,” I said slowly, raising my voice, but keeping it honest. I didn’t hold my sword threateningly—it hung loosely in my claw. My wings stayed in motion, keeping me afloat, but without any predator’s intent.

  “I just wanted to pass through this cave. That’s all. No treasures. No seals. No ancient tombs. I’m not here to desecrate some long-lost secret buried deep beneath the ice. Seriously.”

  She didn’t react immediately. Her gaze—if one could call those frosty, vacant eyes a gaze—remained fixed on me. She breathed deeply. Slowly. Steam rose. And then… she spoke.

  “What do you want, intruder? Why did you attack me?”

  Her voice was less demanding than expected. Not wrathful. Not thundering. More… puzzled. Like someone who’d just been interrupted mid-ritual—not by a foe, but by a lost tourist waving a sword.

  I raised an eyebrow—if that was still possible in this demon-mutated form. “Why I attacked you?” I echoed, pointing at my scratched shoulder, the shards that had almost smashed my face earlier, and then at the crater in the wall.

  “Because you bombarded me with ice meteors and tried to smash me to pulp. Honestly, it didn’t feel like we were playing a drinking game.”

  She snorted. Not laughter—more like a controlled burst of frost and air that formed a little cloud. Maybe something like amused disapproval.

  “You entered my sanctum. Without warning. Without sign. Without respect.”

  “Well,” I muttered, “aren’t caves generally, you know, public space?”

  “This one isn’t.”

  I let myself slowly descend to the ground—keeping distance, but clearly more peacefully than before. My gaze drifted over her massive frame, the slowly closing wounds, and finally to the corridor behind her. The one we needed to take.

  “Listen,” I said calmly. “I don’t want to fight anymore. I’ve got two friends I need to protect. And you probably have something you want to protect too. We can keep smashing each other’s heads in—or we make a deal.”

  She shifted slightly. Not agreeing. Not rejecting. Curious, maybe?

  “What kind of deal?”

  I took a deep breath.

  Then I said: “Let us pass. And in return, I’ll help you. Whatever you’re guarding—if it’s threatened, I’ll fight by your side. Just for that. Then we leave.”

  She stayed silent. But something about her… softened.